


Solace

by later_than_the_rabbit



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Blood, Hospitals, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reader Insert, Schizophrenia, Suicide Attempt, Tumblr, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 13:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12433986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/later_than_the_rabbit/pseuds/later_than_the_rabbit
Summary: You believe you are slowly losing your mind in your shared flat with Sherlock. So much so, that you only see one way out...





	Solace

**Author's Note:**

> Request: Hay^^ Could you write a Sherlockxreader about them being in a relationship but the reader tries to commit suicide because of her schizophrenia? And how Sherlock tries to help her?  
> \- anonymous

Sherlock had noticed you had become increasingly quiet over the past few months. Your usual bubbly personality and bright smiles had become less so, even though there wasn’t any apparent cause for your melancholy. It worried him sick. He knew of the crippling effects of depression and anxiety, how his mind would eat away at him, how it coaxed him into multiple relapses before Mycroft got him into rehabilitation, before Lestrade gave him an opportunity to use his mind and before you came and showed him what it meant to live. Now he was watching the person he loved lock herself away in her body just as he had done.

It had been four months, and though your changes would have been missed by anyone else, Sherlock saw how you had stopped becoming excited at the mention of your favourites books and movies, how you had become less talkative, though before you could have outspoken Sherlock and all the Yard. You were a shell of the person you had been, and Sherlock had tried his hardest to bring you back out of your mental prison.

“Y/N?” You were sitting in John’s chair, scrolling through your phone without seeing your feed. You hummed in response, not even addressing Sherlock with a warm smile like you used too.

He sighed and picked himself up from his chair, making his way to the kitchen to make tea for the both of you. Bringing two steaming cups back into the living room, placing yours on the table beside you, he once again tried to get you to communicate. “Y/N, darling, is anything wrong?”

“Hm?” You looked up from your phone and glanced at Sherlock, shrugging your shoulders and picking up your tea, taking a sip and licking your lips.   
“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I s’pose. Nothing’s wrong so everything is good, yes?” You took another sip and placed the cup back, giving Sherlock a small smile that was nothing in comparison to how you used to smile. Sherlock furrowed his brow and took a confused sip of his own tea as you picked up your phone again, but put it back down without looking at it again, your cryptic response rattling around inside his head.

“You’re sure there’s nothing to tell-”

“I’m fine Sherlock really.” You widened your smile and sipped at your tea until it was finished. Smacking your lips, you stood and patted Sherlock on the shoulder before going to the kitchen to wash your cup. Sherlock watched you from his seat, his heart beating fast when he heard you murmuring nonsense to yourself as the sink filled with water.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You sighed and looked into the mirror, examining your face by sticking out your tongue and grinning to look at your teeth. You had been watching your face for a few minutes now and you could feel that something was off, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Shrugging to yourself, you prepared your toothbrush and smiled one last time at yourself before brushing your teeth, giggling a little when the foam began to dribble a little. 

You heard the front door open then shut again, followed by Sherlock’s heavy set footsteps. You spat out the foam and called out, though you didn’t hear a reply. You poked your head out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway. “Sherlock?”

He grunted in reply and you smiled when you heard the television being turned on. You turned back to the mirror and watched yourself talk. “What’s on the telly Sherl? Better not be one of your crime doccos again.” You chuckled to yourself when you heard a muffled voice answer you. “Good. You know I love them as much as you but even I can’t watch one every weekend.” You went back to brushing your teeth when you heard the door again. 

Spitting out the paste and drying your mouth, you went into the living room, expecting to see John entering the flat however it was just Sherlock wiping water from his face and beginning to take off his coat his coat, his hair was soaking. You furrowed your brow and stopped, watching him take off his outwear. You glanced out the open window and saw that the rain was beating heavily on the window panes, the view blurry from the water. You hadn’t realised it had been raining all day. You turned back to Sherlock, seeing him taking off his scarf now.

“What are you doing?” He jumped at your voice, having not heard you enter the room over the rain and turned to you, a small smile on his face as this had been the first time you had initiated conversation in a week.

“I’m taking off my scarf Y/N. I thought that would have been obvious.”

“But, you’ve been here for a while now. I thought John had just come in.” Sherlock looked around the room and his smile dropped a little. 

“I’ve only just come back from the case I got today.” He hung up his coat and gave you a peck on the cheek, bringing his face back to hover across from yours. “John went to see his sister for the weekend, don’t you recall?” 

“Oh yeah. But then who turned on the telly to crap telly just now?” You looked over to where the television sat, its screen black and the remote sitting on the table, unmoved since the morning. You looked back at Sherlock with your face scrunched a little in your confusion. “I swear it was just going. I heard it.” You looked up into his eyes, his face now neutral at hearing you speak. He swallowed and rubbed your arms. 

“I’m sure it was nothing. I’m going to have a shower. You want Chinese for dinner?” His eyes seemed to be pleading with yours, so you smiled gently and nodded your head.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. I’ll order it.” You turned and left Sherlock’s embrace. When you left his sight, he deflated and scrubbed his hands over his face. He dropped his arms and looked towards the kitchen, where he could hear you speaking on the phone. Sighing, he went to the bathroom, his eyes shutting when he heard the click of the door. It must’ve just been the rain playing tricks on you.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t until after another three months when Sherlock fully realised the extent of your changed behaviour, and the fragility of your mind. You had become mute to the world, hardly smiling except when to be polite and barely talking to anyone. 

What worried Sherlock the most however was the fact that you began talking to no-one. You would have conversations that made no sense to the air and you seemed to hear things that no-one else could, sometimes asking Sherlock if he heard the dog whine, or the man yell on the street.

He saw however that you didn’t always tell him of what you heard, and preferred to keep them to yourself. What he didn’t see was how this was breaking you from the inside. After the first few times you heard something and told Sherlock, you were met with confused looks and calm, slow words. You didn’t want to be comforted, you wanted to be believed.   
You became shut off from the world, paranoid that people would stay and judge you for what you said or heard. The sounds became clearer after that first day and now they were indistinguishable from the world around you. You grew more and more frightened everyday, questioning every sound and every person’s intentions.

You could’ve sworn that the first time was an accident. You distinctly remember that you were cutting vegetables mindlessly when the blade slipped and cut a small gash in the flesh of your left thumb. You didn’t register the pain that emanated from the cut. The world only you could hear muted a little and the sounds faded until the blood beaded and clotted the cut. You shook your head as the sounds returned in full force, dropping the knife with a loud clatter that caused Sherlock to run in from the living room to see you with your hands on your temples, blood smeared on your face where the thumb had brushed. 

He mended your cut and consoled you, hugging you softly and murmuring into your ear until you calmed and the sounds were briefly replaced by his voice. When your head had cleared you remembered the sweet silence that had came with the small cut and you became greedy, wanting that quiet again.

You knew it was a bit not good to want to hurt yourself but it was the only way the sounds went away for a bit. You only ever did it when no-one was in the flat. Then you would lock yourself in the bathroom and chase the silence. After each of your ‘sessions’ you cried until your eyes were raw and until the sounds reappeared. You made sure Sherlock never found out.

Though what was there that Sherlock couldn’t possibly deduce? It was shortly after you had begun when Sherlock saw the signs. You wore long sleeved shirts at all times, pulled at your sleeves to cover your hands and wrists, scratched at the healing scars. When he realised what you had been doing, his heart broke and he tried to talk to you, however you wouldn’t talk back. He stayed with you constantly, telling you he loved you and that he was here to help. 

He and John scheduled regular appointments with psychologists and John’s therapist. You lied through your teeth and told them that it was helping, but how could they believe you weren’t okay if they couldn’t hear the things you heard. Sirens, wails and screams sometimes penetrated through the mundane sounds in your mind and there was the tipping point in your strength. 

You couldn’t go on like this anymore. On one of the days where Sherlock was watching over you and the sounds were too unbearable, you locked yourself in the bathroom for one last time, Sherlock at the door pleading to let you in. You felt tears stream down your empty face as you searched through the cabinets, trying anything that would give you any bit of quiet. You could hear Sherlock’s quiet knocking and pleading turn into banging and emotional yelling. You heard the tears in his voice as the people only you heard grew louder along with him. 

You searched for the razors, but of course Sherlock and John had taken them away. The medication was gone too, even the shower curtain. There was nothing there that could make the voices go away. You looked into the mirror and saw yourself. Your broken self. As you heard Sherlock begin to pick at the lock, your face morphed into rage as you screamed at your image. The mirror shattered as you punched at your face repeatedly, your knuckles becoming bloodied as pieces fell into the sink, blood dripping onto the white porcelain beside them until a large corner of the glass clattered loudly in the room. 

You glared at the multiple faces in the broken mirror as you gripped the shard in your bloody hand, the edges stinging and voices dimming as you rose it to your forearm. As the door swung open, you brought the shard down hard onto your smooth skin, a long gash from wrist to elbow. You watched the blood seep quickly out of the cut and trickle onto the tiles below as the voices receded and the world became quiet. You succumbed to the weightless feeling and fell to your knees, hearing Sherlock yell for you and wrap his arms around your body as you slipped into unconsciousness.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

He stayed by your side for the days that they kept you in the hospital, the gentle monotonous beep of the heart monitor by your side a constant reminder of what you had tried to do to yourself. The cut wasn’t as deep as you had intended but paired with your already diminished health, the blood that you had lost during the time it took for the ambulance to arrive at Baker Street had sent you into shock and you had needed to be given bags of fluid and blood as soon as you had arrived at the hospital.

Sherlock stayed perched in the hard plastic chair by the side of your bed for two days before your eyes fluttered open to the blinding white light of the fluorescent hospital lights. You looked around your surroundings to meet Sherlock’s eyes, the dried tear stains on his cheeks and the redness in the white of his eyes evidence of his breakdown after the event. You tried to speak but the dryness in your throat prevented you from beginning. He had already prepared a glass of water for you to drink, which you sipped shakily before silence fell onto the room heavily. It was sometime before you could bring yourself to speak again. You fiddled with the blanket in your lap, not wanting to look into Sherlock’s eyes.

“Sherlock I -” 

“Why?” Your lip quivered and tears blurred your vision as you told him of what you had been living through alone, of the voices that taunted you day and night which only left with pain. He sat silently and listened until you could no longer talk through the lump in your throat. 

“I - I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t…” You head was buried in your hands when Sherlock moved from his chair to kneel by your side, cradling your shaking body within his arms.  
“I wish you had told me earlier Y/N. I could’ve helped sooner. We all want to help, you didn’t have to hide this.” You cried into your palms as he stroked your back through the sobs. You may not be okay now, but with him by your side, you didn’t have to be alone anymore.


End file.
